Blazing Glory by Angelique Voisen

BLAZING GLORY
     
    Havoc’s
Crew, 1
     
    Angelique Voisen
     
    Copyright
© 2014
     
     
     
     
    Chapter One
     
    Figures on the dance floor whirled
in front in their finery. Elegant gold and silver hues clashed with the bright
and daring colors of emerald and crimson, making Levi Black’s head spin.
    The room’s elaborate, circular
architecture made it worse. Schneider Tower wasn’t the most impressive or
tallest building in Lyon City, but it certainly boasted one of the best
ballrooms.
    Elegant spirals were the common
motif in the Purple Room, the tower’s highest point.
They were everywhere, from the swirling marbled floor to the golden walls and
the impressive stained glass on the mosaic-domed ceiling.
    Levi could stare dumbly at the
ceiling above him for minutes on end, unaware of the comings and goings around
him.
    The honey champagne served on
stalks of elegant glasses didn’t help his throbbing head either. Was that his
fourth or fifth glass? Bear shifters—or for that matter, shifters of any
kind—didn’t get drunk easily, but they still got drunk.
    Whoever decided to serve champagne
laced with expensive grade A honey at a party guarded by bear shifters was
either stupid or doing it intentionally.
    All Levi could do was rely on his ferocious girth and appearance to continue
guarding the door he was being paid to guard. Towering over six feet and built
like a brick, Levi wasn’t a small guy by any means, so his size was enough to
make even the drunkest asshole wise up.
    Well, most, anyway. The very drunk
man tottering toward him was an exception. Normally Levi was within his rights
to toss the drunk out, but he hesitated. Levi’s metaphysical bear reared up on
its hide legs, making his human half sniff the air.
    The drunk wasn’t an exceptionally
large man, but he was built well enough under his monkey suit and was handsome
enough to have any women in the room.
    It was the ink that made Levi
pause. Fine lines of ink coiled beneath the man’s disheveled copper-red hair,
eyebrow, behind one ear, and wrapped round his neck like a scarf.
    “Wizard,” Levi snarled.
    More ink on his arms. The fierce
lines forming flames there finally told Levi what kind of magical idiot he was
dealing with. He breathed through his nostrils.
    The
asshole’s a bloody pyromancer. How wonderful.
    The last thing Levi wanted was to
roughen up someone who could manipulate flames just as easy as he could trade
his human skin for his bear.
    His skin prickled the closer the
man came. None of his bestial instincts were ringing alarm bells in his head,
though. They ran another sort of tune, one that made him feel hotter than he
already was in his rented evening wear.
    Levi sniffed the air eagerly,
easily parting the tantalizing scent coming from the impressive buffet table
and the sweet scent of the attractive pyromancer.
    Shit.
This isn’t good. How am I supposed to guard this damn door when I’m distracted
by this pyromancer?
    “You there. No one is allowed through this door,” Levi growled.
    “Don’t you know who I am, bear?”
the young man slurred, eying with contempt the silver pin of a bear’s claw
pinned to Levi’s jacket. He tried shouldering past Levi’s large frame, but Levi
only gave him a gentle shove back. The pyromancer grunted and glared up at him. “I’m Blaze, from Havoc’s Crew, and the best
pyromancer in the city, so let me through, you big furry bastard.”
    “Heard of
Havoc’s. It’s supposedly the place you go to if you want to destroy
something huge. I haven’t heard anything about anyone named Blaze. Besides,
what kind of name is that?” Levi asked in skeptical tone. “Let me guess, you
chose it for yourself?”
    Insulting a drunken pyromancer was one of the more foolish things Levi could’ve
done. The very air seemed to thin, making it a little hotter than usual. Balls
of flames danced above Blaze’s palms like a great party trick. When they grew
to the size of watermelons, Levi realized